#life sucks and then you die

[semiotomatics]

.

[cliffandthekid-archive]

(So real life is awful, and this morning threw a brand new crisis my way just for shits and giggles. Sorry for not being around, doubt I'll be online much at all this week. And if any of y'all would feel so inclined, keep your fingers crossed for my family. Thanks.)

[nimblermortal]

Very frustrated with Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, 10 before F. I can play it at 140. I can play it at 144. I cannot play it at 146, I cannot for the life of me play it at 148. I have tried slowing down and speeding back up. I have tried skipping ahead to 160. I have tried playing just the eighths. I have tried playing open note sixteenths. I have tried practicing one beat at a time, and adding one beat each repetition. I have tried walking away from it and coming back. I have tried repeating it endlessly. I can play it at 144. I cannot play it any faster.

(Target is 160. I can just about get it at 156.)

My next options are begging the other second violinist for help (I'm in Connecticut, she's in California, presumably we'll be in the same state some time soon), waiting until I get home and can ask Hyacinth to set my metronome to random helpful intervals. Playing scales at ~148 sixteenth notes. Asking the conductor what tempo he's actually hoping for. Giving it up as a lost cause and assuming the adrenaline of playing in a group will fix it.

[labradoritedreams]

Life is so awesome when everything falls apart.

[boioz]

Upon a Burning Body - Sin City

[lokisasylum]

Damn... lost a bestie and one of my favorite college professors passed away this morning, who is also the mom to a very good friend of mine.

What a way to start November, eh?

You assholes better be streaming 🫵

[howifeltabouthim]

And then there are just these episodes, anecdotes, places, pauses, hailings of cabs, overcomings of obstacles, or instances of being overcome by them, illnesses, accidents, recoveries, wars, desires, welcomings, rebuffs, baskings (rare, not so long), pinings (more frequent, perhaps, and longer), actions, failures to act, hesitations, proliferations, endings of the line, until there is death.

Renata Adler, from Pitch Dark

[mastreworld]

We ordered less than a week ago and now I want to do it again just to drown my sorrows in tasty food.

[enigmatic-feral-being]

Day 14 of Random Songs

[kolanaki]

Well this fucking sucks... Previously mentioned first mother's day since mom died... Well, my mom's cat just died now, too. 😭

He was old as dirt and getting close but still. I can't believe he died before my dad's cat, who's a good 5 years older and still kickin' around (though he looks worse every day so I don't think he's long for this world either 😔).

[k1tty5]

mezalean smalletho won’t leave my brain

closeups

and also extra doodles because i’m going to goinsane

[ominouspuff]

No Man Left Behind / Something Worth Dying For

REQUESTS / BLOG EVENT

Request from @razzbberry - Palette #1 - Alpha-17, Cody - Death of the Cynic in Me

Notes and close-ups beneath the cut!

Notes: I think Seventeen would, both subconsciously and consciously, keep his cynicism as long as possible. It’s how he thinks the world works, but it’s also a survival tool. It’d be a very, very slow death.

It’s put to the test with Cody — not because Cody is special among his fellow clones, but because he’s one of the first that bothers to fight Seventeen on his own terms. The argument is always the same. Cody wants to talk about what he hopes to be, someday, after he is a soldier. Seventeen thinks he’s stupid to think that’s possible, or that he’d be capable. Cody knows it, and he, might not be. Seventeen thinks it’s even more stupid, in that case; what a waste of energy.

It develops. When they’re older, and in the thick of war, one day Cody risks his life for the chance to save a brother that was going to die anyway. Seventeen yells at him for fifteen minutes once he’s conscious about luck and stupidity and the trouble it’s causing Seventeen and the false hope it’s engendering in others. Cody says he can disagree all he likes, but he doesn’t give a fig, respectfully. Seventeen thinks Cody can go try to get blown up again, if he thinks so.

There’s no point fighting for a better tomorrow; they’re bought and paid for to fight for something else, FOR someone else. Seventeen is prepared for being fodder, as a result. He’s prepared for unfairness and the bleak life that they’re living. Instead he watches as Cody defeats odds time and time again, somehow managing to balance being an exceptional military leader with a secondary war to live for something more, running himself ragged and — inexplicably — gaining ground. Each of those little victories are a little death for Seventeen’s cynicism; a chipping away. A little seed of Cody’s brand of hope takes root, awkward and begrudging, fond and tentative.

Then Order 66 happens. Cody’s efforts for a better life are in vain, and Cody himself-

Cody may never know that Seventeen was right abut just how helpless they were. Now he only knows that Seventeen is a traitor, apparently, because Seventeen — for once in his life — was the lucky one and his chip malfunctioned.

And Seventeen could say ‘I told you so’. He could rest, vindicated and resigned, in the fact that every dream Cody built up and everything he thought was worth dying for is pointless, now — as he always suspected it would be.

But it isn’t fair, even by Seventeen’s standards.

“What are you doing,” Rex will rasp, caught in a strange role reversal as Seventeen paints an armor set with Cody’s golden colors. “He’s not coming back, Seventeen. He can’t. It’s pointless to keep going after him, you need to stop.”

“No,” Seventeen will answer, unbothered, “I don’t think I will.”

“We can’t — we can’t keep hoping,” Rex says, because he means he will probably have a breakdown if he imagines there is even a pitiful possibility he could save his brothers and then have to turn away from that scrappy chance for the greater good and Rebellion, and all that. “We’ve got to move on.”

“Go on.” Seventeen will invite sincerely, one brow raised because he knows Rex better than that.

“Do you want him to shoot you?” Rex will finally yell, all knotted up at the thought of losing Seventeen too, even though it’s funny because Seventeen was never kind to Rex.

“He can try,” Seventeen will say, touching up the last of the paint. He will stand, wiping his fingers, and pick up his pack. “See you when we get back, then.”

Alt version:

[kandavers]

Hey Kandavers Nation :(

I'm really sorry for what's happening for those of you in America right now. Sending love from Malaysia. Please don't give up! Keep living, and keep fighting!

[hecksupremechips]

Mizuki and Date though like. Imagine being 8 and your parents are filthy rich and going through a bad divorce. Your mom treats you like shit, lashing out at you, hitting you, saying she wishes you were never born all because you were behaving like a child. Your dad is more comforting, but he doesn’t do anything to stop the abuse and he spends his time invested in a completely different family, a girl who you love and look up to but he loves her more than you and it fucking shows. Then your dads new friend, some fucking bachelor in his late 20s, is just like "wow you guys are the worst fucking parents ive ever seen" and next thing you know your dad is sending you off to live with him. And it’s just a massive kick in the head cuz you go from a rich lifestyle to living in some really shitty tiny ass apartment with this guy who’s clearly never been around a child in his entire life and he doesn’t know how to behave and does a really bad job of censoring himself like he has a bunch of dirty magazines that he can’t hide very well cuz it’s literally a studio apartment and also he talks to himself sometimes, it’s really weird. He doesn’t even have the slightest clue what he’s doing

And he’s the best parent you’ve ever had

Because fuck, it all really hurts. You have to cope with having never received any love from anyone, and with the fact that your parents clearly don’t want you and can’t even be bothered to send you with anyone even kinda responsible. And this guy has a scary job with crazy hours and you don’t know anything about him and neither does he. But still, he never once hits you or tells you you’re not allowed to cry. He just gives you space and doesn’t push you to feel any sort of way about him. And sometimes, he’s even kind. He makes you some stew, even though it’s a bit chunky. He lets you sleep in the bed and takes the couch for himself, even though he complains about the massive back pain he’d never trade his spot for a second. He pays attention to events at your school and gives you your favorite stuffed animal when you make good grades, even though you called it ugly. He gets worried sick when you come home with bruises and puts on a goofy voice and trains you to defend yourself and you develop some highly deadly skills and even though it’s really abnormal, he buys you a bench press so you can get stronger. There’s this distance there, and you feel really weird caring about someone who you aren’t related to, but you find yourself wishing it was meant to be like this all along, that maybe, he’s secretly your real dad and he loves you like his real daughter

And when you say "I’m back" he says "welcome home"

[panaceatthedisco]

Charles was actually so right we he told the Night Nurse that she didn't know anything about them.

She tries to prove him wrong by showing him that she knows his past, and more specifically, his trauma. She tries using that move on Kashi too. But the thing is, people are so much more than their pain, but as someone whose work is solely with dead children who were unable to pass on, I doubt she understands that.

The Night Nurse only begins to actually know who the boys are as people and what motivates them when she looks into Charles' mind the second time, to see the beginning of his greatest joys. She starts tearing up Charles' memories of Edwin and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the first time she'd seen one of the kids she was charged to find happy.

[royalarchivist]

Fit: I don't think – we were not meant to win that fight. They wanted to kill an Egg today. They probably tried to do the same to Ramon, but I just happened to teleport to the secret Ramon way stone on accident. I was trying to go to his house.

Fit: I'm almost positive that, like– I think Ramon was supposed to die today.

[ Full Transcript ↓ ]

-

Fit: Yeah, stream chat, I don't think we were meant to win that fight.

[From a moment earlier on stream]

Fit: It's not your fault, Bagi. There was– We did everything we could.

Bagi: No– I told her multiple times to go back to the room!

[End of old clip]

Fit: I don't think – we were not meant to win that fight. They literally– They wanted to kill an egg today.

[From a moment earlier on stream]

Fit: [Jumping off The Wall as he rushes to save Empanada, but is ultimately too late] NO!!!!!

[End of old clip]

Fit: No, I'm almost positive that– They probably tried to do the same to Ramon, but I just happened to teleport – I'll be honest. I teleported to the secret Ramon way stone on accident. I was trying to go to his house.

[From a moment earlier on stream]

Fit: Stay here. STAY. HERE.

[End of old clip]

Fit: I'm almost positive that, like– I think Ramon was supposed to die today.

[From a moment earlier on stream]

Fit: I ain't fcking leaving. I ain't taking an eye off my boy!

Ramon: i was downed on two hearts

Fit: Yeah, I know. A lot of close calls, Ramon, a lot of close calls.

Ramon: my heart is pounding

Fit: I know. But you did good though, Ramon. You did what you had to do to survive.

[End of old clip]